Saint Jeanne Jugan
I SEE SISTERHOODS EVERYWHERE: in the books I read, the movies I see, and the news I hear, where I never saw sisterhoods before. I’m even seeing sisterhood in sainthood.
Blogging here on TSP will do that to a sister: We’ve talked geishas, for instance; never would I have thought of them as a sisterhood. Now I do. And then, as we began swapping vintage recipes, reminding us of the women who have passed these dishes along to us, I began to think of those women who have gone before us as a sisterhood that graces my table as I lay down a family meal.
And then just the other day, idly listening to the news, I heard that there is a new saint, and while hagiography is not a subject on which I am well-versed, as I tuned into what was being said about this holy woman, I realized that she had formed a substantial and remarkable sisterhood, and that, in fact, I was well aware of it, though I had never before heard of her.
The new saint is Jeanne Jugan, a French nun, who one day invited a needy woman into her home and then another and soon had founded Little Sisters of the Poor, and while she died in 1879, her work lives on. More than 40 homes exist worldwide, including one near me that I have visited over the years, getting to know some of the sisters when they showed up in a memoir-writing workshop I once taught.
Ah, sisterhood. It’s everywhere.
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